


It's not impossible when it's possible.

by impossibly



Category: One Direction (Band), The Hour
Genre: 1950s, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, the hour au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 11:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13635489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibly/pseuds/impossibly
Summary: It's precisely because of Louis that Harry knows there are sixty-five steps between them. Sixty-five steps to navigate before he can get to Louis.***An AU of The Hour in which Harry is Bel, Louis is Freddie, and Liam is... Liam tbh.(He's actually Isaac, because of course he is.)





	It's not impossible when it's possible.

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BBC'S 'THE HOUR' so if you are planning on ever watching it (WHICH YOU SHOULD) then maybe save this for after!
> 
> RIP The Hour, which will forever deserve better.

_Sixty-five._

It’s precisely because of Louis that Harry knows there are sixty-five steps between them. Sixty-five steps to navigate before he can get to Louis.

‘Surely it’s not that many.’

‘We’re on the sixth floor. Of course it’s that many.’

They had been in their usual positions: Harry in his chair, his feet up on the desk in front of him, an open and unread file resting on his lap; Louis leaning up against the doorframe, cigarette between his fingers, arms crossed, occasionally pacing the width of Harry’s office to lean against the small bookshelf when he wanted to seem emphatic.

‘If it’s six floors then that’s six flights of stairs.’

‘Your powers of perception never cease to amaze me, Moneypenny.’

‘I mean that if it’s six floors then how come the total number of steps isn’t divisible by six?’

‘Because flights six to two have eleven steps. The final flight only has ten.’

Harry had thought about this for a second and concluded it made no sense.

‘That makes absolutely no sense.’

‘Well, if you’re that concerned about structural uniformity then you should have become an architect.’

‘Ah, but am I not an architect of truth, James?’

He’d then been forced to duck rapidly in order to avoid the pen Louis had thrown squarely at his head.

‘Please never utter a phrase like that again in my presence.’

‘Noted.’

There was a pause, as Harry had redirected his attention to the file on his lap. It contained less-than-agreeable notes from Clarence on the latest less-than-satisfactory running order. He should read them. He should read them and make adjustments accordingly. But it was approaching lunchtime and he was still slightly hungover from his night with the fashion journalist whose name he was already letting himself forget, and Louis was still standing in the doorway being thoroughly, infuriatingly distracting in the way that only Louis could – which, he knew, was Louis’ entire motivation in this moment – and, alright, sometimes Harry couldn’t resist a bit of provocation.

’Fifty-four.’

’Fifty-four?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re saying you think there are fifty-four steps between the sixth floor and the ground floor.’

‘That is exactly what I’m saying, yes. Six times nine is fifty-four,’ he spelled out, knowing the over-explanation would irk Louis.

‘Yes I’m aware of your working,’ Louis had scoffed as if on cue. ‘Nine steps per staircase is obviously not nearly enough.’

‘Well it never feels as many as eleven to me.’

‘It’s those long legs, Moneypenny. They skew your perception.’

He’d long become used to this term of endearment from Louis, to the point where it now felt out of the ordinary for Louis to address him as Harry. It had started when Harry had lent Louis his pristine copy of _Casino Royale_ and Louis had returned it a week later, dog-eared and containing a number of dubious and unidentifiable stains. When Harry had opened up the book to the inside cover, he’d found a note in Louis’ unmistakeable scrawl: ‘ _Moneypenny, Sorry about the damage. I’ll buy the next one. Love, James._ ’

‘You know, my legs aren’t actually particularly long. I’d say it’s more that yours are short.’

‘Stop trying to change the subject.’

‘Stop trying to deflect from the fact that you have short legs.’

‘We’ll make Liam count them.’

‘Your legs?’

‘The steps.’

‘We’re not making Liam count the steps.’

Louis had looked genuinely confused. ‘Why? What could he possibly be doing at this very moment that is more important than settling this disagreement?’

‘He’s not going to count the steps, because you’ve clearly already counted them.’

‘But how do you know I’m telling the truth?’

‘I trust you completely, darling.’

‘Mr Payne!’

‘Lou-’

‘Yes Louis?’

Honestly, Harry had thought as Liam’s eager-to-please face appeared almost immediately in the doorframe - what was it about Liam that made him so ready to be at everyone’s beck and call? Harry was, of course, grateful to have someone so willing on his team. But he’d have to talk to Liam one day soon about standing his ground and setting boundaries in his work. God knows telling Louis not to take advantage evidently wasn’t working.

‘Job for you, Liam,’ Louis was saying. ‘We want you to count the number of stairs from here to the ground floor.’

‘No, we don’t, interrupted Harry. ‘Liam, take these notes and type them up for me will you, thanks ever so,’ he added, selecting a random file from the mess on his desk and tossing it over to Liam who caught it with an over-exaggerated flourish and punched the air like he had just won his team a cricket match, before setting off enthusiastically with the file under his arm.

‘Boring, Moneypenny,’ Louis had said simply, stubbing out his cigarette on the doorframe and skulking off in the direction of his office.

Louis had not bought the next novel, nor the one after that. In fact, Louis had borrowed every single sequel from Harry ever since, and, without fail, returned each one in far poorer condition than it had been received. Harry would have been annoyed, if it weren’t for the fact that Louis had continued his tradition of leaving notes for him on the inside cover. With each novel the notes got longer, and had begun to contain Louis’ erratic thoughts on plot, character development and any quibbles he had with the prose, complete with page references. Always he addressed the notes to _Moneypenny_ and signed them _James_ , which Harry resented - he would never have cast himself in any role other than Bond; consider his impeccable tailoring for one thing – but he had grown to love the notes from Louis, and the lending and borrowing had now become an unspoken agreement between them.

(Harry’s heart tightens when he realises Louis still has his copy of _From Russia, with Love_. He wonders, tangentially, selfishly, if Louis has written the note yet, before pushing that thought firmly from his mind.)

‘Sixty-five, by the way.’

It was later on, during run-through, and Liam had spotted Harry and Louis standing together at the side of the studio and approached them. ‘Sixty-five steps. Y’know – since you asked.’

‘Thank you _very_ much, Payne,’ Louis had replied triumphantly, and if Harry were to go back to that moment now, he’d kiss the smirk right off Louis’ face.

As it was, he merely rolled his eyes.

_Sixty._

It’s not meant to work like this, he thinks. He’s not the one lying out there bruised, bloodied and broken. His own life shouldn’t be flashing before his eyes. But then their minds always have been in sync. Maybe this is just the way it goes. He thinks back to innumerable conversations in which they’d tell each other stories, finish each other’s phrases, complete each other’s stanzas. Riff together on their future as bachelors with their two children, Gilbert and Maude, and the seaplane they’d land every day on Tooting Bec Lido. God, how had they let themselves be so flippant? Or – and he knows this is more accurate – how had he?

_Fifty-seven._

Harry has always thought of Louis as the autumn. Resourcefulness in the face of a storm on the horizon. Order teetering on the brink of chaos. Grounded earth tones mingling with flashes of deep red. The candour of the cold meeting the passionate heat of a bonfire. There’s always that day in October - November in milder years - when you leave your front door and you feel it suddenly and completely: a chill in the air; a tingle of possibility. That’s how it feels to be around Louis; that sense of unpredictability. An underlying sizzle of potential energy, ready to either spark like static or explode like a firework.

He’d tried to explain this to Louis once, when they’d decamped to the bar at the end of a long day - one of those days when Louis had thrown himself headfirst into a story with no thought for his own safety. (Although, he thinks bitterly now, wasn’t that every single day?) He’d intended to use the comparison to highlight Louis’ recklessness but he was a few pints down and it had ended up sounding more flattering than he’d planned.

‘You’re the spring,’ Louis had replied without hesitation. ‘Spring, comma, full of the joys of.’

And then they’d laughed, because all that day Harry had been anything but. He’d denied Zayn top billing for a story on Eisenhower unless he came back with, quote, ‘a less thoroughly mind-numbing angle’ (to which Zayn had muttered something about hoping Harry wasn’t too attached to the current angle of his nose, before stalking back to his office, no doubt to sip whisky from a tin mug and sulk), had come to blows first with Randall and then with Helena on two separate and unrelated issues, both in the space of one hour, and had taken out all his remaining frustrations on an undeserving and perplexed Liam five minutes prior to broadcast, who, as usual, had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

But later that night, in the corner of a crowded club when the fug of cigarette smoke had well and truly descended, and with the zing of myriad spirits thrumming pleasantly through their bloodstreams, loosening them up and evening them out, Louis had looked straight into Harry’s eyes and said simply: ‘Green. Like the spring. Like hope.’ Harry had stared back into stormy blue, had opened his mouth to respond (with what exactly was anyone’s guess), but then Louis had sprung to his feet and was snaking over to a reluctant Zayn, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him away, demanding they dance, and the moment was gone. And Harry was left alone to watch how the pink-and-gold light from the faux-ritzy lamps on the ceiling cast Louis’ skin in a warm rose glow like the late autumn sun.

_Fifty-three._

It was an unshakeable fact of Harry’s life that Louis possessed an infuriating ability to get under his skin at the most inconvenient of times. He recalls driving to Niall’s parent’s house the country all those weekends ago, Helena by his side and Louis in the back seat, openly rolling his eyes at Harry in the rear-view mirror whilst Helena regaled them with tales of her long-lost loves.

‘My first boyfriend was a highly eligible heir to a country pile. I wrote him pages of godawful poetry during the war,’ she had said, though she’d acted coy when Harry had pressed her for a line.

‘Happily forgotten.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been sent love poetry,’ Harry had said then. It was a casual comment, barely considered before it had left his lips.

‘Yes you have,’ came Louis’ voice from behind him, and silence had enveloped the car as Harry’s thoughts had snapped immediately to the book of e e cummings poetry Louis had given Harry on his birthday the previous year. ‘ _Happy Birthday, Moneypenny_ ,’ the note on the inside cover had read. ‘ _Page forty-four. All my love, James._ ’

Even now, Harry is maddened by the extent to which he was able to ignore what was right in front of him.

_Forty-eight._

Later on, Louis had barrelled unannounced into his room and leapt onto the bed next to him, bouncing like a four-year-old until the two of them had collapsed into disbelieving giggles at the situation they had engineered for themselves - this house party charade in which neither of them belonged, in which Louis might be forced to hold a gun and shoot a pheasant. It was utterly, inexplicably hilarious, and a moment like countless others he’d shared with Louis in which Harry was able to consciously think: ‘This is happiness. This is contentment.’ But he knew a little then, and even more so now, that it wasn’t just that. Contentment was measurable. His feelings towards Louis defied calculation.

_Forty-five._

Before dinner that night, Harry had wandered into Louis’ bathroom, searching for toothpaste. Louis was on the phone, needling Liam – willingly working on Louis’ behalf on a Saturday, of course – for every last scrap of information about Kish. Barging in on Louis whilst he was in a state of undress was nothing Harry hadn’t done a hundred times before in the years they’d known each other. He relished the way Louis played up to it -  the way he turned on the dramatics, sitting up suddenly in a splash of suds and steam. ‘Oh I’ve seen it all before,’ Harry would intone. ‘Not on me,’ would be Louis’ prudish refrain. But this time was somehow different. Steam from the bathwater blurred Louis at the edges. His face was damp from the trails of water that scurried from the roots of his mussed-up hair, traversing his cheekbones and snaking down his neck to pool in the hollow between his collarbones, and all of a sudden Harry was so aware of everything – of Louis’ nakedness beneath the murky water of the tub; of the way his own shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel, his braces hanging loose around his hips. Plucking louis’ cigarette from his fingers and taking a long drag in a desperate attempt to continue to appear nonchalant, he’d sat at the side of the bath speechless whilst Louis continued to bark down the phone, oblivious to the charge that was now crackling through the room - or so it felt to Harry.

Oblivious, or perhaps unfazed. Because really, Louis was always unfazed, and Harry regrets now just how long he mistook this lack of self-consciousness for indifference.

_(‘I don’t think I’ve ever been sent love poetry.’_

_‘Yes, you have.’)_

_Forty-one._

That was the night that he had first allowed Helena to kiss him. It was an outcome that he knew from the second he met her was inevitable. Because from the moment they had met, Helena had flattered him - and Harry liked to be flattered.

He knew he had a certain allure. Not in the traditional, machismo sense; it was something more ethereal. Androgynous, even. He’d been told many times that he was beautiful, by women, by men – almost daily by Zayn, which he’d mostly chalked up to teasing. But then Zayn valued art and beauty in a way not many Harry knew did, so on another, more private level, he was inclined to believe him - which made him feel self-possessed and self-conscious all at once.

But there was no denying he played up to it, mainly through how he dressed. The slim tailoring. The crisp white shirts. The dark teal wools and the burgundy tweeds. Petrol blues. Mustard yellows. Bright oranges and corals. Jewel-toned suits and ties that - he’d noted absent-mindedly one afternoon - sparked out in contrast to Louis’ muted browns and greys. (Louis never put much effort into his dress. But then, thought Harry, why would he need to? It was all there already. That effervescence, that luminescence. The ability to enrapture without embellishment. Louis just had it. Harry needed a bit more help.)

Harry also loved to flirt. That was the other thing. He could be shameless, though he always made a point of denying it when confronted. He flirted with everyone, but he flirted with Louis the most, when he thought about it. Or maybe it was just that Louis gave as good as he got.

_Even now he feels Louis’ hand on the small of his back, hears his slurred, silky words._

_‘You’re looking ravishing tonight, Moneypenny.’_

_‘I bet you say that to all the girls, James.’_

_Emboldened by spirits and his status as the birthday boy, Louis is particularly ostentatious tonight - whirling Harry onto the dancefloor of the gloomy underground club, snaking his hips a little closer than is probably appropriate, slurring bad Spanish into Harry’s ear before collapsing into giggles, his face in Harry’s neck._

_‘I like you like this.’_

_It slips from Harry’s mouth before he’s even aware of the words forming on his tongue, and he wonders if he ought to regret it. But Louis is, as ever, unfazed._

_‘You didn’t like me before?’_

_‘More,’ he’d replies truthfully, because he can never be anything but truthful with Louis. ‘I like you more.’_

_Thirty-seven._

So yes, Harry loved to flirt. He loved to flirt with Louis the best, but that didn’t mean he didn’t flirt with everyone else as well. And when Helena came along and showed more than enough interest, Harry had played along, because it has been fun to do so, and because he’d enjoyed the attention.

Also he liked to be touched, which, unlike the flirting, wasn’t exactly something he could get from Louis. Not beyond the graze of a hand on a wrist, the playful brush of a shoe on a shin under a table; touches that Harry was careful never to let himself crave, but that he always savoured when they arose.

But they weren’t enough. They were never enough, and sometimes it just so happened that there was an itch that needed scratching. And so it followed that there were women - and men too sometimes, though less often given the discretion required for such a liaison. And so Helena Horan became the next on a list of beautiful and beguiling people that Harry allowed himself to be seduced by, and as with every other entry on the list, he let himself believe that this equalled happiness (or as close to happiness as he was likely to get given that happiness was generally defined by marriage and a house and a refrigerator and two well-behaved children).

_Thirty two._

Louis’ reaction hurt more than Niall’s, and really that should have been a clue. It was Niall’s life Harry was tearing apart, not Louis’, and it was Niall who had eventually come to his office and confronted him - indirectly, but with enough suggestion that he knew what was happening for Harry to sit up and take stock of just what it was that he hoped to achieve from screwing the wife of the slightly pitiful man in front of him, wearing the slightly pathetic ill-fitting pinstripes. Harry felt for Niall, he did - but at the same time he was having trouble conjuring any kind of respect for him. Helena may have made a good match financially, but she was out of Niall’s league in every other sense. She was stunning where he was inoffensive, oozed charisma and charm whilst he was merely amicable. In person she was engaging; on camera she was magnetic. What had Niall expected, really, in marrying someone who, to all intents and purposes was destined to outshine him in every arena? That she’d have her pick of men was a foregone conclusion. This wasn’t Harry’s fault. It was merely an inevitability. And now Niall didn’t even have the decency to punch Harry, instead choosing to employ this tactic of passive aggressive disappointment. Harry had had to concede that his technique had been alarmingly effective in bringing his guilt to the surface. That had irked him more than anything else, if he was honest.

But seeing Niall’s wounded expression as his faded-cornflower eyes had pinned Harry down from across his desk had been nothing compared to witnessing the quick, blink-and-you’d-miss-it spark of – what was it? betrayal? anger? disappointment? – that flashed across the deeper blue of Louis’ irises when he’d one day slipped into conversation a comment that made Harry sure that he knew exactly what was going on.

Was Louis really that affected? Harry knows now that the answer is yes, and he kicks himself for always remaining so wilfully blind. Because there had been so many moments in which Louis had laid his cards on the table in a way that was so uniquely _Louis_ , and which Harry had chosen to ignore.

_Twenty-nine._

Louis tucking a drunk and dejected Harry into bed after their disastrous first broadcast.

‘ _You should sleep!’ Harry slurs. ‘Everyone needs their beauty sleep!’_

_He closes his eyes, feels Louis slowly drape a blanket over him and arrange it carefully around his shoulders. It’s quiet for a moment. Then Louis is bending closer -  Harry feels his breath tickle his face - and now Louis is tucking a stray curl behind Harry’s ear, his fingers leaving a hot trail that prickles like static. Harry holds his breath._

_‘Not everyone,’ says Louis softly, and he lets Harry pretend he hasn’t heard._

Louis, back in the bathroom at Niall’s parents’ house, fringe still slightly damp from the steam, his toothbrush lodged squarely in his mouth.

_Harry lifts his head from spitting out his toothpaste to find Louis staring plainly at his face in the mirror. There’s a pause. Harry waits. Then -_

_‘They’re very even. Your ears,’ Louis declares simply Harry lets out a confused chuckle and Louis carries on brushing._

Louis reciting e e cummings in the dim light of Harry’s bedroom after Harry had kissed Helena for the first time.

_‘You need to sleep,’ Harry tells him, as Louis lies beside him on the bed, turning over anagrams and theories out loud, repeating ‘revert to brightstone’ like it’s a prayer. Meanwhile Harry’s head is filled with Helena and regret, and he’s aroused and confused and he needs some time alone to think._

_‘Good idea,’ Louis says, rolling over and placing his head on the pillow beside Harry._

_‘Not with me.’_

_‘Boring, Moneypenny.’_

_‘And stop calling me that!’_

_And then Louis is standing by the door, but he isn’t leaving. And then he’s reciting those words – the words on page forty-four that Harry has memorised -_

_‘(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands’_

_Twenty-seven._

Moment after moment. Instance after instance of Louis stating like fact something that would make Harry’s head spin with _whats_ and _whys_ for at least the next twenty-four hours. Whats and whys that can be answered so easily now. That he could have answered just as easily back then if he’d been honest with himself, and with Louis. Yet still Harry hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge what he – and what everyone around him, Helena included - knew to be true.

Instead he’d compiled a list of excuses. Louis wasn’t being serious. Louis was just playing up to Harry’s flirting; Harry flirted with everyone, and people were entitled to flirt back. Harry was reading too much into things, and even if he wasn’t, this could never work; practically speaking – Christ, not to mention legally speaking - this was impossible. So in the end, why was it even worth consideration? And besides, Louis was… Louis. He was frustrating. He was a nightmare. He drove Harry mad. Harry couldn’t imagine life without Louis, but he sure as hell couldn’t imagine life _with_ him either.

And then Louis had returned from Paris with a wife. And everything Harry had suspected had been confirmed. And he had used Louis’ marriage as justification for every excuse he had ever made.

He knows now that it was more likely a symptom.

_Twenty-five._

In the end, it came down to two things. The first was pride. Harry had been proud. Too bloody proud to acknowledge that Louis – infuriating, impossible, reckless Louis - was exactly what he wanted. Because there had been women often, there had been men occasionally, but there had always been Louis, in a more whole, more complete way than there had been anyone else. And something in Harry found that maddening and terrifying all at once.

And that was the second thing. Fear. Fear of what would happen if he truly let himself go – let himself submit to what he knew he wanted so desperately. He was scared of things changing. He was scared of making himself vulnerable. Of allowing himself to want openly. To admit to himself that he needed Louis.

Because they did need each other. That was the one, inescapable fact of their co-existence. Louis needed Harry and Harry needed Louis.

Louis had needed Harry when he’d been unable to save Ruth. When, curled up on his father’s grimy sofa in the small hours of the morning, he’d wept silently into Harry’s chest for hour upon hour until the grey, grainy dawn slid into the room to illuminate the dusty carpet, and his eyes were raw and his fringe hung limp over his eyes, and the cotton of Harry’s shirt was soaked through with salt. Louis had needed Harry when the death of Kish – at the bottom of the very staircase down which Harry now runs - had left him shell-shocked and distant and fearful and reckless, and in desperate need of a hand to steer him, a rope to tether him. Louis had needed Harry when his wife had left (and Harry still hates himself for jab of pleasure this realisation had given him at the time). 

And Harry? Harry had needed Louis always. This was both a simplification and a perfect distillation of the truth. 

_Nineteen._

It had been Louis, in the end, who he’d needed to convince him that they were possible.

Louis had found him standing there unmoored in the middle of the corridor as Billie Kendal delivered her fatal blow: ‘You’re cold. This is impossible. _You_ are impossible.’ And yes, he was, he always would be, always had been, and so was this situation – the programme, the business with Cilenti, the fate of Miss Ramirez, the danger he’d exposed his team to. Everything was impossible and Harry was trapped and he had lost control and he needed to stop for a minute and take stock and _breathe_.

And Louis was all it had taken in the end.

‘You are not impossible. Impossible is just what hasn't been done. It's not impossible when it's possible,’ he’d told Harry emphatically later that afternoon, staring up at him with those stormy eyes, and it was at that moment - in the middle of the bustling studio with everything in disarray and the programme in jeopardy - that Harry had suddenly realised that when Louis was looking at him like this, anything felt possible. And that had been enough for Harry to grab Louis’ hand, drag him into the nearest empty room and – and what? He didn’t know. But he knew it was finally time to do… something. Harry, practical and measured as ever, even as his heart was beating at ten times its normal pace, had wanted to talk. But Louis, of course, was one step ahead. And that was them, wasn’t it? Louis always one step ahead of Harry, and Harry always following willingly behind.

_(When Louis leans up to place his lips to Harry’s it’s a closing and an opening. It’s Harry stepping outside his door on the first day of Autumn and it’s Louis there waiting for him. It’s a spark meeting a fuse; the candour of the cold infused with the heat of a bonfire. It’s turning to the first page of the book and finding a handwritten promise. Louis kisses Harry and Harry kisses Louis, and in this moment they are possible.)_

Except then Louis was leaving, and somehow Harry wasn’t following.

_Fourteen._

Now Harry once again acknowledges what he has always known deep down: that he is a coward. That he will follow Louis to the ends of the earth at any hour of the day - except when it really matters. It was true when Louis ran away to America and Harry stayed behind, choosing instead to spend hours crafting a letter destined to fester in his desk drawer unsent. And it was true when he let himself be kissed by Louis – when he let himself kiss back – and then allowed Louis to walk through the door, unpursued once again. 

And now Louis lies unmoving on the lawn in front of Lime Grove on this hazy May evening, and only now is Harry running – now, when it may be too late - and as he runs his heart is breaking like the bones in Louis’ limp body.

On the 54th step, Harry looks down through the window into the blueish gloom beyond, and tries to fathom what it is that he might be losing. The figure on the lawn is still, bathed in an unforgiving wash of cold yellow light. Its limbs are splayed in unnatural directions, like a bird fallen from a nest too soon. To get back from here, Harry thinks, is impossible. But he realises in this moment that he’s never really believed in anything _but_ the impossible.

Because he’s never believed in anything but Louis. 

_‘I am tired of it not being possible, it is possible. You are possible. You are possible with me.’_

He breathes in. He speeds up.

_Ten._

Harry’s in a bed that isn’t his own, and Helena is on his lips, but Louis is in his ears – ‘ _the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses_ ’ –

_Nine._

Harry is writing a letter to Louis that Louis will never read -

 _Seven_.

Harry’s outside Louis’ house and Louis is there but his wife is there too and Harry’s heart is sinking -

_Five._

Louis is kissing Harry and Harry is kissing Louis and Harry is possible with Louis -

_Four._

Louis has gone and Harry hasn’t followed and why hasn’t he followed -

 _One_.

But Harry won’t make that mistake again, will never not follow Louis again, and now he’s crashing through the doors, sprinting across the damp lawn towards the silhouetted figure and finally –

Here’s Harry, next to Louis, where he belongs.

In the shadow of the building with sixty-five steps, Harry holds Louis now, like he always should have. Or perhaps like he always has. Louis breathes in and Harry breathes out - because that breath sounds like a possibility. Louis’ eyes open briefly, fleetingly, glinting in the dewy darkness. A glimpse of stormy blue. An autumn ocean crashing into spring green. 

Green like hope.

‘ _Louis_ ,’ Harry breathes or pleads or prays.

‘ _Moneypenny_ ,’ is the broken response, as brittle as fallen leaf, and Harry allows himself another breath. This, he thinks. This. This moment. Life - beautiful, fragile, perfect life – must be impossible. 

But then, of course, so are they. 

And yet here they are.


End file.
